what did santa bring?

I don't know why you chaps make such a fuss about building model locomotives. Santa brought me a kit:

Only thing is I'm a bit worried about getting the boiler past an Inspector. It's made of steel.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 28/12/2016 17:25:17

Just finished building the Lego Caterham 7 620R (present from other half). Now have a total of three model 7's to keep real one company.

On the subject of caring cats, all our three cats varying in age from 2 1/2 up to 18 know when someone is not well. They will find the bed with the ill person and keep them company till they feel better.

Colin

Speaking of Lego...my family clubbed together to buy me the Lego Mindstorms eV3 set. I'm having a lot of fun with it. My three Boys had the earlier Mindstorms sets when they were young, and the sets are still here, but when I decided to have a play last winter I found that the leads had all died of old age, the insulation falls off them. So now I have a new set with brand new leads, and if I want to I can also use all the parts from the older sets.

John

I was given an Arduino Uno, a digital clock display and a DS3231 RTC by my son. I am now trying to work out how to hook the lot together, set the time on the RTC and then use it to trigger events each second, minute, hour and day..

James.

Hi, the main thing about sprouts is to not over cook them or keep them in a hot plate, they need to be eaten soon after they are cooked to have the best taste. Recent studies seem to show that they help to reduce the risk of dementia and are overall good for the brain. I like them if they are cooked correctly, but very sour if keep hot or over cooked. Oh! and a lot nicer after a good frost on them apparently.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 30/12/2016 10:04:35

I think you make statements as though it is fact - when it is just your opinion e.g. cooked correctly is how you think they should be.

For me - I like them cooked - I think there is more than enough half-cooked veg by trendy chefs in restaurants. Yes, I think they do improve after a frost.

My nephews bought me an Arduino 4 wheel drive kit for xmas. It's stretching my brain because there are no instructions!

There's an Arduino, micro-servo, acoustic range finder, Bluetooth receiver, Bluetooth transmitter, 4 optical sensors, motor driver board, battery box, 4 motors, chassis plates, wheels and miscellaneous hardware. All I have to do is build the chassis, wire everything together correctly, and program the Arduino,

To add spice, I haven't been able to identify the motor control board and it has 55 connectors.

Believe it or not I am making progress decoding this puzzle. If this is what modern yoof do when playing with technology, I'm impressed. Them kids must be quite smart!

Dave

This may help -

,Hi All,

As I have already demonstrated my total lack of knowledge of things electrical with my power feed disaster on my mill I hardly dare even ask this but here goes!

Everywhere I look I see these Arduino thingies! Can somebody please tell me, simply please, what they are?

They seem to be capable of doing everything from making toast to powering nuclear submarines....

L know I am almost certainly not going to understand the answers but what the hell!

Cheers, Martin and Happy New Year to all here!

Sure does! Many thanks

Dave

I have no idea why that posted three times! Too late to edit now.

Andy

Martin,

The Arduino is an open source microcontroller based on a number of different Atmel microprocessors. All of the external electronics that are needed to enable the processor to be standalone are done for you on the board, so you only have to worry about programming it, and hooking up any external inputs and outputs.

Quite easy to learn the programming as it is 'C' based.

Have a look at www.arduino.cc

Andy

Martin,
The Arduino is a small self contained computer that can be fairly easily programmed to control things like small toy robots, flash lights control stepper motors for rotary tables but is no where near as powerful as a pc, laptop, or even phone. There have been lots things like it before that have been the 'bees knees' for a few years before being replaced by something more powerful.

Because it is the thing of the moment it is grasped as the solution to everything, like rear parting tools or tangential tools that will solve all your turning problems. It was 'invented' in Italy I believe to make it easy for artists to add flashing lights to their 'art installations' hence uses the word 'sketch' for a program and 'shield' for an add on board.

What's "C" ??

My two boys bought me a selection of imperial sized end mills to replenish my stocks ( from Arc ), wife bought me a solid gold lens hood for the SLR ( must be solid gold at the price - surely it can't just be plastic ! ), a magnifier / lamp from the Midland ME Exhibition and a MeArm robot kit.

Although programming robots is my trade, I am fascinated by the underlying motion control software which I know almost nothing about, so, as the MeArm can be controlled with an Arduino i'll be able to experiment.

My oldest lad ( he's over 30 year old ) had a Lego Technic Bucket Wheel Excavator kit - a huge model and so complicated, loads of gears and shafts - a fully working model ( kept him quiet for two days ! ).

Had a day out shopping on Wednesday - dropped in to Arc as my brother-in-law ( visiting for Christmas ) wanted some bits and pieces and was greeted cordially by Ketan, his good lady wife and had the usual lengthy chat during which we put the world to rights - came away with a bag full of assorted stuff.

I don't know where Bazyle gets his ideas from, but my understanding is that the Arduino has a rather respectable industrial heritage. True it was designed as a teaching aid to make it cheap and easy to prototype simple control projects. False, that the target was solely 'art installations', even if we agree that's a bad thing.

The Arduino originated in a thesis project at the Interaction Design Institute, Ivrea which is in Italy. There's nothing fluffy about "Interaction Design". It's a hairy arsed engineering methodology, invented by a Brit. There's much more to technology than bashing metal.

Almost everything I've bought recently has a microcontroller in it. Washing Machine, Fridge Freezer, TV, DAB radio, computer mouse, doorbell, sewing machine, lathe, printer, dehumidifier, decorative lights, coffee machine, guess what - all micro-controlled. Even the cat's xmas clockwork mouse turned out to to have a battery and microcontroller. For £5 it runs round the room in straight lines and curves. The mouse reverses when it gets stuck; it goes to sleep, wakes up, and has an impressive vocabulary of animal noises. A really good buy - the cat is terrified of it.

Dave

Santa brought me a nice new 12.5mm drill, so I am off out into the workshop to start work on a new trailer. Chris Gunn

The successor to 'B'

Neil

Ditto the scorpion I bought my daughter. i would have bought her the spider, but it was too realistic for me

Neil;